Season of Graces moving into Advent 2013

Believe it or not, but for 2013 the first Sunday of Advent starts on December 1 - the Sunday of the four day USA Thanksgiving Weekend. As we've been working through table blessings during November as a Season of Grace, I thought I would provide a table grace for Advent - one that could be used as an ongoing part of your Advent Spiritual Practice. More about Advent on Monday.

Blessed Be,

Joel

          Advent
Into the bleakest winters of our souls, Lord, you are tiptoeing on tine Infant feet to find us, hold our hands. May we drop whatever it is we are so busy about these days to accept this gesture so small that it may get overlooked in our frantic search for something massive and overwhelming. Remind us that it is not you who demands large, lavish celebrations and enormous strobe-lit displays of faith. Rather, you ask only that we have the faith of a mustard seed and willingness to let a small hand take ours. We are ready.
          ~ Margaret Anne Huffman

Cotner. Graces. (1994). 45.

Season of Graces - Cont.: Thanksgiving Blessings 4 of 4

Happy Thanksgiving (in the USA).
We at Winds of Grace wish you a very blessed Thanksgiving Day with this last of the four Thanksgiving Prayers.

Blessed Be,

Joel and everyone at Winds of Grace

Thanksgiving Grace
(All join hands around the table)

This is a day for thanks.
   A day in which we
   see or hear or feel
   the wonders of the other
   moments of the year.
This is a day for time.
   A day in which we
   think of pasts that make
   our present rich
   and future bountiful
This is a day for joy.
   A day in which we
   share a gift of laughter
   warm and gentle
   as a smile.
Above all, this is a day of peace.
   So let us
   touch each other
   and know that
   we are one.
For these and other blessings,
we thank Thee, God.
          ~ Daniel Roselle

Cotner. Graces. (1994). 47.

Season of Graces - Cont.: Thanksgiving Blessings 3 of 4

We are continuing Thanksgiving week with our third of four blessings. Enjoy.

Blessed Be,

Joel

Thanksgiving Day Prayer

We take so much for granted
of life and liberty,
and that we deserve it;
that all was done "for me."

Think how they must have struggled,
new pilgrims in this land.
So many died from hardships
yet still they made a stand.

When all the work was finished,
new crops sowed in the ground,
they gathered with their neighbors,
asked blessings all around.

Oh, God, help us be grateful
for gifts you've sent our way.
For these we want to thank you
on this Thanksgiving day.
     ~ Kris Ediger

Cotner. Graces. (1994). 45.

Season of Graces - Cont.: Thanksgiving Blessings 2 of 4

There are four Thanksgiving prayers this week. Enjoy this second of the four.

Blessed Be,

Joel

For flowers so beautiful and sweet,
For friends and clothes and food to eat,
For gracious hours, for work and play,
We thank Thee this Thanksgiving Day.

For father's care and mother's love,
For blue sky and clouds above,
For springtime and for autumn gay,
We thank Thee this Thanksgiving Day.

For all Thy gifts so good and fair,
Bestowed so freely everywhere,
Give us grateful hears, we pray,
To thank Thee this Thanksgiving Day.
     ~ Mattie M. Renwick

Sarah McElwain (ed). Saying Grace. (2003) 77.

Season of Graces - Cont.: Thanksgiving Blessings 1 of 4

There will be four prayers for this week of Thanksgiving. Enjoy this first one.

Blessed Be,

Joel

Thanksgiving Blessings

Lord be with us on this day of thanksgiving
Help us to make the most of this life we are living
As we are about to partake of this bountiful meal
Let us not forget the needy and the hunger they feel
Help us to show compassion in all that we do
And for all our many blessings we say thank you.
     ~ Helen Latham

Cotner. Graces. (1994) 46

Season of Graces - Cont.: For Everything Give Thanks

For Everything Give Thanks

For all that God in mercy sends,
For health and children, home and friends,
For comfort in the time of need,
For every kindly word and deed,
For happy thoughts and holy talk,
For guidance in our daily walk,
For everything give thanks!

For beauty in this world of ours,
For verdant grass and lovely flowers,
For song of birds, for hum of bees,
For refreshing summer breeze,
For hill and plain, for streams and wood,
For the great ocean's mighty flood,
For everything give thanks!

For sweet sleep which comes with night,
For the returning morning light,
For the bright sun that shines on high,
For the stars glittering in the sky,
For these and everything we see,
O Lord, our hearts we lift to Thee
For everything give thanks!
     ~ Helena Isabella Tupper

Sarah McElwain (ed). Saying Grace. (2003) 67.

Season of Graces - Cont.: Lifting the Veil

Heavenly Father and Mother,
Lift the veil
That separates us
From three knowledge
Of your love.
May we be warmed
By the glow of Your Divine Love
And freely give to others
The love You freely give to us.
     ~ Jo-Anne Rowley

Bless our hearts
to hear in the
breaking of the bread
the song of the universe.
     ~ Father John B. Giuliani
        The Benedictine Grange
        West Redding, Connecticut

Cotner, June. Graces. (1994) 147, 144.

Season of Graces - Cont.: From the Hebrew Prayer Book

Though our mouths were full of song as the sea,
And our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves,
And our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;
Though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,
And our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,
And our feet were swift as hinds, we should still be unable
To thank thee and bless Thy name.

O Lord our God and God of our fathers [and mothers], for one thousandth
or one-ten thousandth of the bounties which Thou has bestowed
Upon our fathers [upon our mothers] and upon us.
~ Hebrew Prayer Book*

*McElwain, Sarah (editor). Saying Grace: Blessings for the Family Table. (2003) 15

Season of Graces - Cont.: All Saints Day

On this day of the Communion of Saints and for tomorrow's celebration of All Souls, the following prayer/reading seems appropriate as we remember those who have gone before, and who are yet, still present with us.

Blessed Be,

Joel

The Larger Circle

We clasp the hands of those that go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us.
We enter the little circle of each other's arms
And the larger circle of lovers, whose hands are joined in a dance,
And the larger circle of all creatures,
Passing in and out of life, who move also in a dance,
To the music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it
Except in fragments.

~ Wendell Berry*

______
*As found in Singing the Living Tradition (1993) 646.